Shauna Doyle
Havertown, PA
Major: Education of Persons with Hearing Loss and History
After four years of Honors
classes in high school, just outside Philadelphia, Shauna Doyle
expected a lot from the Robert E. Cook Honors College at IUP.
She wasn't disappointed.
"In high school I worked as
a teacher's assistant, became friends with many of my teachers,
and would often spend afternoons talking with them. What I hoped
to find, and did find, at the Honors College were professors who
not only like to teach -- they also want to interact with us.
They are always there for you when you need them. All of the professors
I've met on this campus have wanted to get to know us as students
and…just…people. And, in class, they don't teach in
the traditional sense of just presenting material and lecturing.
They are there to facilitate learning, which is very different.
Unlike the professors in many colleges, our professors are here
primarily to teach, not to do research and to write books all
the time. And, unlike the situation in most universities, we have
professors teaching all our classes, not graduate students."
It's not just the professors who make the
difference for Shauna and her classmates. It's the prevailing
sense of community, of connection, that students, faculty, administrators
and staff seem to share so strongly at IUP and the Honors College.
"I don't know what I would have
done without the community of the Honors College. People care
about me as a student and a person, which is wonderful. I've always
felt welcome here, which is important for students in college.
And it just keeps getting better as more honors courses are added.
We're a young college and we're only getting better with each
passing semester!"
During her years at the Honors College,
Shauna Doyle has been active, not only in the Honors College,
but in the larger community of Indiana, Pennsylvania.
"I'm in the Sign Language Club,
and I'm the Facilities Committee Chairperson, but I also volunteer
at the Open Door as a Crisis Intervention Specialist, tutoring
people in sign language and tutoring children in Indiana in various
subjects. After a summer of study in Ireland, I'll be student
teaching in 2002."
Perhaps it should come as
no surprise that teaching and a sense of community are important
to Shauna. She plans to be a teacher, herself, very possibly on
all levels, from K-12 through college, over the course of her
budding career.
"I plan on graduating with my two
degrees, in History and Education of Persons with Hearing Loss,
and then either go straight into teaching (hopefully at a school
for the deaf, so I can teach history) or just go on to graduate
school. My long-range plans, in any case, are to get Masters Degrees
in both education and history, and then a Ph.D. in one or the
other. Eventually, I'd like to teach at a university, but I think
I'd like to experience teaching at the primary or secondary level
first. Whatever happens, I do know one thing – that, no matter
what else I do, I will probably be a student for most of my life,
since it's what I love the most!"
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